Chennai, April 26 (IANS) Gujarat Titans won the toss and elected to bowl against hosts Chennai Super Kings in the 37th fixture of the IPL 2026 here at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium, in the first match-up of the double header Sunday.

At the halfway stage of the tournament, both CSK and GT are evenly placed with three wins and four losses from seven matches, making this clash important for momentum and standings.

CSK head into the game high on confidence after a dominant win over Mumbai Indians, powered by Sanju Samson’s unbeaten 101 and a four-wicket haul from Akeal Hosein. Back at Chepauk, where they have won two of three matches, CSK will look to continue their strong home form.

In contrast, GT are under pressure after back-to-back losses to MI and Royal Challengers Bengaluru, despite a century from Sai Sudharsan. While their bowling remains a strength, concerns over an inconsistent middle order persist as they aim to regain form.

Winning the toss, GT skipper Shubman Gill said, “We’re gonna bowl first. It looks like a good wicket. On a wicket like this, it’s good to have a total on the board. (The heat is) not that bad. A good bit of breeze going on, so hopefully it wouldn’t be too tough on our bowlers. We’re doing a lot of the things right. It’s just about winning the small moments and I think in bowling when we’re leaking runs, we are leaking too many runs in that period of three to four overs. So it’s just about hitting that length ball consistently in the middle overs. And that’s what the talk has been about. Honestly, if the wicket is nice (in the powerplay), that is our talk. If the wicket is well, get 70-80 in the powerplay, get as many actually in the powerplay but it’s very important to assess the conditions and if the wicket is a 170-180 wicket, really you got to assess that as well because I think at the end of the day, it’s important to play the conditions rather than something that has not happened. One change, Arshad is coming back in the squad.”

Meanwhile, CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad said, “It’s a bit on the drier side and more often than not, it will remain the same, so we’re batting first really well and wouldn’t mind putting on the score again and defend it. The confidence is high looking at the margin of the runs that we won the last game. But again, this game starts fresh, starts from zero. We have to start assessing how the pitch is, bat accordingly, and then try and defend it. But obviously, confidence-wise, we are slightly getting better and better in terms of overall unit. It’s just that one or two areas where we need to click, we need to fire, and we’ll get better on from that. I’ve been getting starts and not able to convert it. It’s very rare, to be honest, but it doesn’t quite happen that often. But as I said, as long as I’m getting starts and as long as someone else is doing the job and we are getting over the line, it’s fine. But whenever I feel, I’m there, I’m set, and I feel that today’s my day, and I’ll have to make sure I’ll make it count, and I’m confident with that. We just got one change, Urvil comes in, and we’ll play around with the impact player.”

Playing XIs:

Chennai Super Kings: Sanju Samson (wk), Ruturaj Gaikwad (c), Urvil Patel, Dewald Brevis, Shivam Dube, Kartik Sharma, Jamie Overton, Akeal Hosein, Noor Ahmad, Anshul Kamboj, Gurjapneet Singh

Impact Substitutes: Sarfaraz Khan, Mukesh Choudhary, Prashant Veer, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Matt Short

Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill (c), Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler (wk), Shahrukh Khan, Washington Sundar, Jason Holder, Rashid Khan, Arshad Khan, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj, Manav Suthar

Impact Substitutes: Glenn Phillips, Anuj Rawat, Kulwant Khejroliya, Nishant Sindhu, Rahul Tewatia

–IANS

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